JOURNEY’S
END
by Bennett Campbell Ferguson
Above:
Luke (Mark Hamill) becomes a true Jedi.
Photo ©Lucasfilm Ltd., 20TH Century Fox, and Walt Disney
Pictures
The first time I saw “Return
of the Jedi,” the rambunctious and reflective capper of the original “Star
Wars” trilogy, I was ten years old, and a newly-minted “Star”-fan. I invited a gaggle of my grade school pals
over to my family’s house, and we watched the movie while guzzling some root
beers. It was a grand time, though I
don’t want to go back to those days.
Don’t
get me wrong—I’m nothing if not nostalgic.
But to see “Return of the Jedi” through my fifth-grade eyes again would
be to miss the movie’s determination to not be what almost every other summer
blockbuster is: a story of good versus evil.
Yes, as all action extravaganzas do, this one concludes with a
hero-villain clash. Yet final battle of “Jedi”
is not about winning—it is about one man choosing to spare the life of another.
At the start of “Return of the Jedi,” the noble scoundrel
Han Solo (Harrison Ford) has been imprisoned by the bulbous Jabba the Hutt,
while the ragtag warriors of the Rebel Alliance gear up to challenge the evil Galactic
Empire for the last time. Among them are
Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), though Luke’s
thoughts keep drifting towards what he learned at the end of “The Empire
Strikes Back”—that his father is Darth Vader (who is once more voiced by James
Earl Jones), a minion of the Empire and its cackling Emperor (Ian McDiarmid).
I should point out that in addition to being a father-son
story, “Return of the Jedi” offers a smashing hit of cinematic adrenaline
(highlight: a scene where Luke and Leia race through a jungle on “air speeders”—vehicles
that whip by so fast that passing trees become an emerald blur). Yet the real attraction of the movie is its
heart. “Your thoughts betray you
father,” Luke tells Vader with a calm smile.
“I feel the good within you…the conflict.”
Those words are among the most important in the “Star
Wars” lexicon. Luke has every reason to
believe the worst of his father (it was Vader’s own soldiers who killed Luke’s
aunt and uncle back in the first film in the series). Yet he chooses to believe that beneath the
dark armor of this hissing tyrant, there is compassion, enough compassion that
he can coax it forth and turn a bad man into a good one.
Optimism is a hard road, and “Return of the Jedi”
understands that. Yet director Richard
Marquand doesn’t leave us with only that sobering thought. Instead, he closes the movie with an exchange
of hugs and handshakes in a forest at twilight, as friends reunite after a
long, grueling war. There are no words
but together, Luke, Han, Leia, and all of their friends kneel together in front
of the camera, looking like they’re posing for a Christmas card photo.
In the end, what matters is not that they are allies in star
wars, but that they are family.
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